Tête à tête
by Aviv b
Summary: Attending a conference in London leads to unanticipated developments for Tosh & Owen.


Summary: **Attending a conference in London leads to unanticipated developments for Tosh & Owen. **This was originally written for a schmoop bingo challenge at LJ. The Prompt was: **Unexpected Date****  
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"Do I really have to go?" Owen complained before Jack had even told him all the details. "What are those UNIT wankers going to teach me about medicine?"

"They have some very good surgeons on their staff, you never know, you might just pick up some tips from them."

Owen snorted. The last UNIT conference he went to bored him to sleep. Literally. Ok, maybe the late night drinking sessions with that ravishing blond Colonel contributed to his inability to stay awake during the sessions the following days. _'Lorna Bloom, yeah that was her name,'_ Owen mused, _'legs so long you could…'_

"Hello, excuse me, earth to Owen," Jack snarked, snapping Owen out of his reverie. "I'm sending Tosh to the conference as well and let's make sure I don't get any complaints this year about a particular medic being hung-over during meetings"

"Oi! I don't need a minder. I can't believe you would send her to keep an eye on me."

"If you recall Tosh is also a fully trained physician and since the conference is on medical technology, I think it's appropriate that our resident tech genius attend."

"But…"

"Ok, we're done then, Ianto is making your hotel reservations, and UNIT already has you confirmed on the 5:45 train to London next Monday." Seeing the look of horror on Owen's face, he smiled as he confirmed for Owen, "Yes, that's 5:45 AM."

"I'm barely in REM sleep by then. You are a sadist, Captain, a real sadist."

Back in his office Jack sighed. He'd already spoken to Tosh and while she was very enthusiastic about the conference, she was less than thrilled with Owen attending.

"Just so long as you don't expect me to babysit him. I may be done with my five year probation with UNIT, but I still want to make a good impression. And hung over, surly Owen is not going to enhance my reputation."

"No of course not. If he's a problem, call me and I'll deal with it."

Owen groaned as the train pulled out of the station. "Leaving before 6 AM, it's totally uncivilized. And having to wear a suit, it's ridiculous." Tosh looked up at Owen, momentarily breaking her concentration on her lap top. "What are you doing?"

"Working a math puzzle."

"Figures."

Tosh knew that Owen was being a prat because he hated to get up early but it really wasn't fair for him to take it out on her. She opened her thermos of coffee and poured herself a cup.

"Is that coffee?" Tosh nodded, this time not bothering to look at Owen. "Ianto's coffee?"

"Yes it is."

'_She's not going to offer me any.' _It took Owen about ten minutes to work up the courage to ask Tosh for a cup of Ianto's coffee. During that time, he complimented Tosh on her suit, pretended to show interest in the logic puzzle she was working on and even smiled…twice.

"So any chance of me snagging a cuppa?" Owen said trying to be casual.

"Oh is that what you want. For a moment I thought you were actually being pleasant without wanting something in return," Tosh teased as she handed him the thermos and a plastic cup.

"I can be charming. I can be pleasant without any ulterior motive." Owens said, putting his most sincere face on.

Tosh took one look at him and burst out laughing. "Owen, that is the silliest look you've got on your face. But keep it handy. It might get you somewhere with the UNIT Brass. Or maybe that brassy UNIT officer I heard about."

Owen almost choked on his drink. He couldn't believe that Tosh had heard about his little escapade with the Colonel.

When they got to their hotel In London they were surprised to find that they both had deluxe suites. "Leave it to Ianto, the man is a genius," Owen said sincerely impressed.

They had an hour to settle into their rooms and grab a taxi over to where the meetings were being held. Given the number of government, UNIT, and military personnel attending the meetings, security at the convention center was tight. And through some bureaucratic mix-up, Tosh ended up on the 'no admittance' list.

Tosh stepped out of line and called Jack on her cell phone. Owen was arguing with the low level toady who insisted that Tosh couldn't attend.

The first session was about to start and Tosh urged Owen to go in and get seated. "Jack will sort this out, and you shouldn't have to miss any of the conference."

"The hell I will," Owen said shooting daggers at the security detail that had gathered. "I'm not leaving you here with these goons."

Ten minutes later a UNIT Brigadier appeared and straightened the whole mess out. "I'm so sorry Dr. Sato, there is obviously some mistake." Despite the protests of the security detail, the Brigadier hustled Tosh and Owen into the conference room.

As the sessions continued through the day, even Tosh had to admit that the meetings suffered from information overload. For the final lecture of the day Tosh had chosen "Future Technological Applications to 21st Century Problems." Half way through, it was apparent that the technology that UNIT was displaying were trivial medical items from the future. Why didn't they have (or weren't willing to show) half the items that Torchwood used on a daily basis? Where was the basil cell carcinoma zapper? And nothing for treating burns beyond a slightly improved version of silver iodine cream? Pathetic. After an hour she left in disgust.

Much to her surprise she bumped into Owen in the hallway. "Was your session several centuries behind the times?" she asked. "You wouldn't believe it. This medic was going on and on about improvements in plastic surgery for shrapnel injuries to the face and she didn't once mention the Zaxathoran tissue regenerator let alone the Nevison stem cell technology that's, what, only from a couple of decades in the future."

"Same thing at my session. Why don't they seem to have the technology we're using at Torchwood? And could you believe that session on rehabilitative medicine this morning? I wasn't expecting them to be discussing a sonic screwdriver, but they didn't even seem to know about new materials for joint replacements or anything about advanced technology for brain regeneration following stroke. They weren't even up to date on the latest real-time Earth technology," Owen concluded shaking his head in disgust.

"Well I know Jack shares most of our finds with them, but I guess if they didn't find it first, they are reluctant to give Torchwood any credit by acknowledging their usefulness."

"Now you know why I didn't want to attend."

"Prats," Tosh added, earning a smile from Owen.

"The last thing I want to do is eat dinner with some stick-up-the-arse military men and women," Owen groused. They spoke a bit more and then decided to go for dinner on their own.

They went back to their hotel and after changing out of their suits, found a quaint Italian restaurant not far from their hotel. They ordered some appetizers and a bottle of Chianti to start and over the next two hours chatted and laughed about their day with UNIT.

"Oi my favorite bit was Brigadier Whats-your-name and his talk about antibiotic resistance." Imitating the very upper crust accent of Brigadier Wasserman, Owen continued, "My distinguished colleagues. This is a most _worrisome_ problem with _dreadful _consequences if we aren't judicious about the dispensing of antibiotics in the next decade." Owen pretended to adjust some reading glasses and look at his notes. "Indeed, we might find ourselves in a pretty pickle if we are too generous sharing our advanced technology with the general riff-raff."

Tosh snorted. "Now he didn't actually say riff-raff."

"No he didn't," Owen continued in the same contrived manner, "but surely all of us Etonian graduates know of whom we speak. Those same horrid people who weren't allowed to join the polo club or drink tea with an extended pinky."

"There really was a 'let them eat cake' attitude to the whole session, wasn't there."

"Tosh, you are much too polite. Frankly, I don't know when I've had to listen to a more condescending prick. Oh yes I do, it was at the last UNIT conference. There was some old wind-bag intoning on how the masses, yes he actually used that word, could easily be manipulated to disregard evidence of alien visitors. Not that he isn't right, but I think that would apply right across the social spectrum and not just us unwashed peons."

As the evening went on, they turned from work related discussions to more personal topics. A second bottle of Chianti probably helped the conversation along. Owen remarked how tiring it was to be on the pull all the time.

"Oh come off it Owen, having a different woman every night sounds right up your alley."

"Not really. I always was a one woman guy until I lost Katie. Then, I just didn't want to get hurt again. And after loosing Diane, well it only got worse. Honestly, don't you miss having someone to be with?"

Tosh looked a bit embarrassed. "I never had a really long term relationship. To busy in school and my family was very strict about dating. Then I got sucked into the whole UNIT thing and that prison sentence did put a crimp in my wardrobe." Tosh signed. "And then after Tommy and Mary, I just haven't felt like making the effort."

"And Torchwood keeps us both awful busy, doesn't it?"

"Yes it does," Tosh agreed drinking the last of her wine. "Well, we better get back to the hotel; otherwise Jack may get a report of two rather hung over and sleepy Torchwood attendees at tomorrow's sessions.

"You know Tosh; let's do this again some time."

"What? Get a little drunk and talk about how pathetic our personal lives are?"

"No…uh…I meant go out together. On another date."

Tosh looked over at Owen to see if he wasn't setting her up for a really nasty joke. The look of raw pain on his face almost broke her heart.

"I mean it Tosh; maybe you and I should give it a try."

"Are you serious? Don't tease me about this Owen."

"Yeah, as strange as it seems, I'm totally serious. After all, what's the worst that can happen?"

Tosh smiled. "Let's see. Blow up Cardiff, Detonate a neutron bomb, spread a plague, nothing too terrible."

"There you go, being an optimist again."

"Seriously, I'd like to go on a date with you."

"Another date," Owen reminded her as he picked up the check. "No reason the captain needs to know about our little off campus excursion."

They walked back to the hotel in silence. As they parted at the elevator, Owen planted a quick, chaste kiss on Tosh's lips. "Goodnight."

As Tosh rode the two additional floors to her room she wondered when she woke tomorrow if this would be real, a dream, or a nightmare.


End file.
